DM Carpe's Serpents Skull

The merchant ship Jenivere has embarked upon a voyage from Magnimar to distant Eleder, in a land of jungles and ancient ruins. Our heroes have been picked up at one of the many ports along the way, and now head for the myth shrouded Mwangi expanse.

No problem Lydran the site has been having some issues lately anyway so its probably a better time than most to have been busy. If you feel you might not be able to post for a bit, in combat especially, perhaps give a few suggestions as to how you would prefer to act, etc.

Back among the connected. I managed to cajole the failing hard drive into giving up an image file, swapped in a new drive, and spent an hour or so watching the computer rebuild itself. Seems to work OK now.

Hey guys, I'm starting my sabatical in about a week, and I've finally got my plans hammered out. Instead of traveling around China, I'm just going to visit the terra cotta army, then spend the next three weeks or so on Wudang mountain, studying martial arts with the monks there. It should be cool, but I somehow doubt that Taoist monasteries are going to have wireless internet capabilities. It's highly unlikely I'll be staying in the temple proper, but I'm not going to count on whatever hostel or guesthouse I find having internet capabilities, so I might be off the grid for as long as three weeks. I'll let you know more once I get some details hammered out, along with what Lydran is doing and how he'd typically behave in combat. You can NPC him if you want, but I thought that since we've already got one NPC tagging along, he might just stick back and help mantain camp while I'm gone.

I'm sure it'll be fine Lydran, I'd say have him stick with the group so he'll keep up XP wise, etc. Your trip sounds like it will be amazing, I'm very jealous! Not to be crass, but could I ask how much its going to cost you? I'd love to do something similar.

I'm still figuring that part out. I'm hoping to spend no more than a $1000 for the whole thing by avoiding planes and hotels, using trains and busses instead, and staying in hostels (I've found several with good ratings that cost like 30 RMB per night, which is a little less than five dollars). The only major expenditure would be the cost of martial arts classes, and I'm trying to work out how much that would cost and what the options are. I know that a one-day lesson is about 50 USD, which is more than I'd like to pay, but I believe those are for one or two day "courses," and I know there are people who attend for longer stays, so I'm sure there are cheaper options for that (been having trouble finding info on that, but even if it's not the case, I'll have enough for a week and half or so).

For the most part, it's expensive to get to China, but once you're there the cost of living and the cost of transportation is very low.

Hmmm, that's doable, I love seeing the less touristy parts of exotic locales - spent months in Peru on a budget, and have traveled almost everywhere in Europe on a pittance to. My little brother is teaching in Uganda at the moment, and Skyping with him has gotten me green with envy and rekindled the old wanderlust!

It looks like the boards are mostly back to normal, though the "Recent threads in $CURRENT SUBFORUM" list still seems to be slightly borked. It looks like it only shows the threads you haven't hidden as long as they're in the first 100 threads on the combined Online Campaigns subforum; with the number of PbP games going on here, things typically get pushed off the front page (and out of the Recent list) in less than ten minutes.

Not really I'm afraid Quinta, lights not really an issue with the glowing waves. Obviously the closer you are to the water the easier it is to see, Alexite was 20 feet behind Joll so took a -2 for example.

I made them up, yes. ^^ In this case, the idea tickled me as I was at my sister's place and I worked out the basic idea on the way home. Thanks to the magic of copy and paste for the refrain, with the editing added in... Meh, half hour or thereabouts?

Man, I've got bad timing, because it looks like this scene would be a LOT of fun to play out. However, I wanted to give you a heads up that I'm about to depart, so I'll probably be out-of-touch for a month. I'll log on when I can so I can keep track of what's going on, but I imagine my access to internet will be sporadic to the point that it will be impractical to do more than keep myself informed. I'll back on November 28th, though, and with renewed vigor!

Ha, yeah, small world, I always kinda liked that miss it like crazy now that I live in a small English town - we haven't even got a cinema - though to be honest there's probably one closer than there was to me in Jax. Did a philosophy degree at UNF - good times. Used to be the largest city in the world for area I believe, the poster child for urban sprawl.

I'm looking to recruit an replacement for a PBP project that is just about to get underway, and wanted to see if any of you guys might be interested. We're looking for an experienced player, and preferably DM, who can get started quickly - if not with their game then with getting PCs ready so we can kick off the other games.

The idea is that a group of five of us each run a game, and get to play in the other four's games. We have Fanguar running Age of Worms, me running a homebrew - but rigorously planned - Golarion Nex based game, and two home brewed games, one run by Doomed Hero, and another by a fellow named Almagafor - you have probably read Doomed Hero's guide to PBP on the forums, and if you have not I'd heartily recommend it, and he's DMing a game I'm in which has been great fun so far.

I'm really excited about my game, as the fluff for Nex, Geb, and Alkenstar is brilliant and rife with potential - all the PCs are distant descendants of the Archmage Nex.

Legacy of Hatred Blurb:

The Archmage Nex, founder and ruler of the country named for him, has been missing for thousands of years. Nex's archrival, the dread necromancer Geb, still rules his own evil land - a ghost who cannot rest until he knows his ancient foes fate, and is assured of his victory.

For centuries now the countries of Nex and Geb have enjoyed peace, and been able to recover from some of the horrors caused by their master's apocalyptic spell battles. But within Nex many factions stir and the Council of Three and Nine are gathering any with the Archmage's blood, "for their own protection". A single phrase has stolen into the countries consciousness, seemingly from the ether; "Hand of descent extended, I shall return to deliver my people." Rumors speak of the warp storms of the Mana Wastes waxing in violence, of the twisted monstrosities that dwell there growing more frenzied, and of the undead legions of Geb massing for war!

Thanks for the offer but I will pass. I'm currently running a PBEM game and playing in two PbPs. I wouldn't mind playing in another game (prefer PBEM but trying out for PbPs since there are no PBEMs). In any case, I don't have time to run another game and if I did, I would run another PBEM. That being said, if my work load allows it, I may start another PBEM in the next couple of weeks.

Any comments on the game at this point, ideas to improve things, etc., guys and girl? As always I promise to listen to and consider all comments, but retain the right to completely ignore them if I feel like it ;)

At this point I hope we're getting a nice taste of the dangerous Island atmosphere, and you are making great progress with the NPCs. I'm pretty pleased overall, the games going at a great rate for PBP - much, much faster than any of the games I'm in as a player that's for sure.

Any comments on the game at this point, ideas to improve things, etc., guys and girl? As always I promise to listen to and consider all comments, but retain the right to completely ignore them if I feel like it ;)

At this point I hope we're getting a nice taste of the dangerous Island atmosphere, and you are making great progress with the NPCs. I'm pretty pleased overall, the games going at a great rate for PBP - much, much faster than any of the games I'm in as a player that's for sure.

My PBP experience is extremely limited (only played/playing in two games and never DMed one) so take whatever I say with a grain of salt. :)

That being said, I think you're doing quite well with the game.

The RPing is mostly on the PCs (which are also doing fine) but you intercede plenty with NPCs.

The combat seemed well-organized and with maps to help everyone know distances, enemies, etc. Granted the combat has been fairly quickly but the same applies for longer combats so I see nothing to be concerned about.

However, the most important thing you are doing well is 'knowing' when to move ahead (like you did a few minutes ago). I think that is very important. Whenever, the game 'slows', it really is up to the GM to move it forward and present another RP opportunity and you're doing that very well. This impacts the game pace significantly.

Thanks Alexite, always nice to hear :) I agree with you about moving games along, unless its a really important decision point or the characters seem likely to have a strong objection one way or another I think its important for a PBP DM to prod things along.

I did see the Carrion Hill recruitment, but the PBEM bit put me off I'm afraid. I'm in a lot of games and I think I'd struggle to pay enough attention to one that wasn't on the site. Best of luck with it!

I am enjoying the game greatly, especially the fast pace that it maintains. The other players have really impressed me with their characters. Dragolan's march through the thorns raised the bar for imaginative play and his articulate speech reminds me of the text from the first DMG. Also, I second those who commend your prompts to keep the game going.

I'm liking the game. My posts have been kind of in bursts at times and I apologize about that. My life is kind of sporadic in its activity periods. I never know what's gonna happen.

The first encounter was a real slog due to how it starts, and that's the only thing I can say that I definitively disliked. Everything else has been pretty good, and I'm enjoying all the interactions.

As a side note, since I was thinking about it:

Jack's kind of a loose cannon and really slow to trust, so he's bound to get a bit more social once he bonds with the group a bit more. He's a little harder to befriend than our NPC pals, but he'll come around once he gets to know people better. Until then, he'll still be pretty cooperative, if not a bit impulsive.